The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) in partnership with UNICEF is going to launch an online portal for career guidance and counselling of class 9 to 12 students in all affiliated schools. CBSE has brought on board a consultative group of experts belonging to industry, academia, and government to prepare the future road map. The portal can be accessed at the official website.
This initiative will help young people to gain knowledge and skills for self-development and to transition smoothly from school to higher education or work. To support adolescents, UNICEF, along with 13 state governments and the private sector has customised career portals in regional languages, reaching 21 million adolescents helping them access educational and work-related resources and opportunities.
The career portals also available on mobile apps offer information on careers, college directories, courses from several countries, scholarships, and competitive entrance exams.
Speaking at the launch of the portal, Terry Durnnian, Chief of Education, UNICEF India, said, “The pandemic has heightened concerns among millions of young people about their future livelihoods and skills needed to thrive in the 21st century. UNICEF has supported career guidance portals across several states to empower adolescents and young people to make informed educational and occupational choices that support their social, financial and emotional well-being.”
The CBSE dedicated online portal on career guidance and counselling coincides with the declaration of class 10 and 12 results for this year and includes information on various careers, courses, scholarships and examinations for students from grades 9 to 12.
Portal accessible to all at free cost
The portal is linked to the CBSE main portal. All CBSE school students will be able to sign up on the portal with their details and access a personalised career dashboard that will also be accessible to teachers and administrators.
The portal with the entire career curriculum will be offered to students at no cost. Currently, each student through an individual career dashboard will be able to access to 560+ careers (English, Hindi and 8 other languages), a total of 25,000 colleges and vocational institutes spanning over 3 lakh courses, 1200 scholarships and 1150 entrance exams.
Two teachers/counsellors per school will be trained on the portal through a digital training session and given a personal counsellor dashboard to access the entire career curriculum and use it to guide the students for their career queries. This will build their knowledge base on career guidance.